Tuesday, January 27, 2009

You're So Naive, Part 2

Dear Friend,

Well I reckon that many (if not most) of you are probably thinking that I’m way out of line about the election of Obama. You could walk with me (eventually) in what I had said about the evils of Bush regime; but Obama? Surely I’ve gone over the top this time — lost the plot — lost my marbles even? Don’t think I don’t ask myself those questions every day? I wrestle with all this night and day. I check and double-check everything that I write for I have no desire to quench genuine hope or report anything which is untruthful. But sometimes one has to stick one’s neck out despite the unpopularity it may bring.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve had to go out on a limb on these issues. Some of you may be old enough to remember that when Tony Blair was elected as Prime Minister of the UK on 2nd May 1997, I wrote a piece to my e-mail list the following day, entitled “Dawn of Darkness”. Here are some extracts of what I wrote on that fateful day nearly twelve years ago:

Amidst all the talk of "A New Day Has Dawned", I awoke today feeling it was instead a dawn of darkness. A blinkered and presumably bewildered electorate voted for the new breed of "democratic" socialism which has now become a leading trend in the political life of the developed countries. They call it “The New Labour Party”.

Tony Blair, Jack Straw and their cabinet colleagues are deceivers who have twisted and turned until they have cultivated a face which will fool the British people into thinking that they are conservatives with a human face. Within the next few years we are going to witness the complete dismantling of the political, moral and spiritual fabric of this land - not to mention its sovereignty. The New Labour Party is not like the Soviet-style socialism of Harold Wilson's era in 1964. Instead it has acquired an almost New Age messianic quality with Tony Blair as the saviour who will mend all ills.

Actually, in many ways, it matters not a jot which political party comes to power in any of the countries of the Western world. The real power lies with other, secret, groupings which most people know nothing at all about. Neither Tony Blair nor John Major could ever be anything other than puppets who must dance to a tune played by those who have nothing whatsoever to do with the democratic political process in the U.K.

Have you not received the impression that we have been watching a poorly scripted movie acted out before our eyes? Why should the Conservative Party suddenly have behaved so suicidally in the last couple of years while New Labour started to be lauded in the media in the most effusive manner? The whole thing has been a set-up. The people of this land have also played their part by walking into the trap in this election. Even the Presidential-style welcome for Blair at Downing Street today was a carefully stage managed event (in which the press fulsomely colluded), with party workers and their children being bussed in by party hacks to wave Union Jacks.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -That was nearly twelve years ago! Does that ring any bells for today? How quickly we forget these “New Days which keep Dawning” but which go straight to dusk without any daylight! Déjà vu. Déjà vu. We need to develop a heightened sense of déjà vu. And now we seem to be here once again. We seem to stagger from one manufactured “New Day Dawning” to another every few years, according to the political time-clock. It is this ability to be so easily manipulated by external events which turn out to have no substance which prompts me to write as I do. It is not that I want to pour cold water on everything that happens. Far from it! My only desire is to expose psychological manipulation and corruption; but it isn’t always immediately obvious to ‘mostpeople’ when that is happening. Thus, when I see it I cannot remain silent.

People are most easily manipulated and most open to suggestion a) when they have previously been driven to desperation (which is why cults and brainwashers like to break their subjects down) and b) when they are infused with a feel-good factor (which is why everyone in adverts smiles inanely all the time). If people have been driven to the edge of desperation and are in need of a feel-good factor in their lives then they can be coerced into believing, saying or doing anything. This is how really effective Public Relations (PR) works, whether in product advertising or political spin. And nowhere does PR come more into its own than when an election looms.

Thus, there are two ‘cycles’ used by the secret powers behind the scenes. I’m not talking here about the President and his immediate associates but about the real, unelected Powers That Be in the intelligence/military/corporate scene who not only manipulate the election of the President and his immediate associates but who also ‘run’ them after they have been elected. In the first cycle they have a rightist style of government which willingly enacts on their behalf a great deal of restrictive, oppressive, anti-freedom legislation (such as the Patriot Acts of the Bush regime) and prosecutes wars and coup d’états all over the world. At first, they manage to manipulate the people through clever PR to support them in all these things. But after some years, there is a general dissatisfaction of the people with that government and, because the PTB have to work within the limitations and pretence of “democracy” for the time being, there has to be a change in the visible aspect of government to keep the people from becoming too seditious and troublesome while at the same time giving them the cosy impression that they have power to change things. Then there is the second cycle, which ensures that the right guy is elected as President at the head of a more leftist style of government. The PTB may then possibly (though not necessarily) — for a few years — have to put up with somewhat less opportunity for restrictive, oppressive and anti-freedom legislation, although wars and coups d’etats can still continue to be prosecuted unabated after convincing the people through spin that they are in the public interest. (The Vietnam war, for example, flourished well under a President of the Democratic Party). Bear in mind that the PTB can generate any situation they wish if they want to bring down the government or create a big change in it at any time (viz. the assassination of JFK or Nixon’s Watergate).

So these two cycles interchange with each other and, over the course of time, regardless of which type of government has been in power, the goals of the PTB will still be achieved. This is not unrelated to the “Bad-Cop, Good-Cop” technique of interrogation. First the really nasty cop lays into you very roughly — maybe even beats you up. Then a nice cop comes into the room, tells the other cop to lay off, apologises to you for such awful behaviour on the part of his colleague, then gets alongside you and — guess what? — you sing like a canary! They’ve got you eating out of the palm of their hand; believing, saying and doing anything they want.

Well that’s how the PTB operate when it comes to controlling the way you think and behave during their political machinations. They put some guy in office through whom they are able to enact all their evil without any restraint; then, when you’ve had all you can take they put some other, seemingly nicer, guy in office to relieve your desperation, provide you with some false hope and a give you a dose of the feel-good factor. At that time, you are wide-open to believe anything he or she says and do anything to support him. The fact is that you will even support him in starting a genocidal war. Just think of all the lefties who supported Tony Blair joining forces with George W. Bush to invade Iraq on a killing spree of a million and more. (Actually, they didn’t even really object that much when Bush and Co. started the genocidal war on Iraq — but that was mainly because of the successful nature of the post-9/11 spin and the lies about WMDs in 2002/2003, which, incidentally, I exposed as lies at the time but was excoriated even by the left in the US who had predictably morphed into patriotic mode!). That’s why the PTB doesn’t mind putting a more leftist government in office. There is very rarely any hassle from the peace movement when a leftist government starts a war. Sad but true. (Consider this very carefully during the coming US administration). As my song, “You’re so Naïve”, states concerning the election of Barack Obama:

“Such a clever move it is; it makes you all relaxTakes the wind out of the sails of protest movements' acts”

I’m reading an extraordinary book at the moment which sums up this overarching PR process in its title: “Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry” (Common Courage Press, 2002). It’s about how PR works. The aim of really effective PR is to make you believe that even Toxic Sludge is good for you. If you can feel good about Toxic Sludge then the PR has succeeded. You won’t even realise that the Toxic Sludge is toxic. It won’t even occur to you. In fact, you’ll think that Toxic Sludge is the very elixir of life! You’ll even do the purveyors of the Toxic Sludge’s job for them by sharply rebuking anyone who dares to call the sludge “toxic”! This is the zenith of successful PR.

Now substitute the word “Obama” for the words “Toxic Sludge”. “Obama is good for you!” “Obama is good for you!” “Obama is good for you!” Thus, when the PTB, through cleverly-presented spin, present you with this guy for President — even though you really know nothing about him whatsoever — who seems to press all the right buttons and ring all the right bells, you will not only weep buckets when you hear him speaking but you will fulfil their wishes and elect him to office, regardless of what people like me may say. You will even castigate me as being filled with negativity and gracelessness. Then, instead of experiencing déjà vu, as we should, we will lose ourselves in the hype. But, if I may say so, that is a kind of emotional Hara-Kiri. Hmm… I wrote a song about that many years ago, entitled “The Fool Falls on His Sword”:

I have been there before...Feeling I'm on a mountaintop and riding highThough all my instincts tell me that it's all a lieThis is the one I dreamed about my whole life throughThought I could breathe at last although it's all untrueClinging to straws and roses makes it seem so fineYet I committed Hara-Kiri every time.

I thought I'd seen the light...Flashing and swirling round me like a storm at seaWarning me not to go there cos of where I'd beShowing me how I'd fall into the poisoned tideTearing myself to pieces with that knife insideBut I was like an insect round a candleshineAnd I committed Hara-Kiri every time.

I wrote that in relation to a romantic love-relationship but it is surely just as applicable to the situation we have today with Barack Obama. Looking at people’s faces in the crowds at Obama rallies I see people who are in love. No exaggeration. Blind love. So desperate are people that they will hurl their affections at someone who presses the right buttons by saying the right things about freedom, democracy and the future. (This guy has been chosen very carefully and cleverly for this task). But just as we often don’t learn from mistakes we made in relationships year after year, so we don’t seem to learn from our mistaken political affections year after year.

If you doubt what I say, here’s a little exercise: Try and cast your minds back to the time when Bill Clinton was inaugurated in 1993. Again, people had been made desperate and were longing for change during the George Bush Senior years and when Clinton came on the scene — good-looking, charismatic, suave and saxophone-playing, the whole world went for it. Think about it. Remember the euphoria you felt. The New Day Dawning. It was worldwide. This is how the PTB operate. They drive you to desperation with years of evil (which most people only identify as evil by the time the office of the ruler is coming to a close!). Then they feed you some hope which you clutch onto as if it was all there is (which it probably is!).

Here is a YouTube video of Clinton’s inauguration speech. As you listen to it, does it remind you of anything? All that talk of change and renewal and making America great once more. It could be Obama’s speech yesterday. Whoever writes these speeches needs an Oscar for Best Screenplay! The Presidents don’t half do a great job presenting it either. These people are the finest actors! Very polished. They must have been performing weeks of rehearsal in front of a mirror and their wives. They are words which people want to hear so much and they can be said with a great deal of conviction and feeling. But it is all hot air. So just remind yourself of how ecstatic everyone was in that inaugural moment of Bill Clinton’s. Please watch this now:

Did you cringe? Especially when you remembered how his presidency panned out! The balls held in the evening after that were ecstatic. Aretha Franklin sang “I Dreamed a Dream” [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl5ZM02s7yA ] . An over-the-moon Warren Beatty introduced Barbara Streisand [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgxLyrQ8G08 ]. A whole galaxy of stars said that a new day had dawned, the earth had moved and the world had changed. They all performed well and hagiography had its night. But, at the end of the day, it all issued in another presidency of broken promises and impeachment, during which the usual spate of international US evil took place.

The same euphoria — maybe even more so than with Obama — greeted the election and inauguration of Tony Blair in May 1997. In fact, the razzmatazz had been deliberately designed on the basis of Clinton’s inaugurations in 1993 and 1997 by the savvy PR moguls in Blair’s New Labour party. The Brits don’t normally go in for coronation-style inaugurations. But when Tony Blair came to power after years of increasingly unpopular Conservative rule all the elements were there: people desperate for change and longing for a feel-good factor in their lives. Again, watch this YouTube video of Tony and Cherie Blair entering Downing Street. Unbelievable! Scenes like this have normally only been reserved for Royal coronations. Please watch this:

Déjà vu. Déjà vu. Oh Tony. Oh Bill. What did you do which changed the world? You both presided over illegal genocidal wars. Oh you get your little reward in being able to spend the rest of your lives giving after-lunch speeches for $100,000 a throw. But all that inaugural razzmatazz. All those euphoric enraptured people taken for ride. It’s criminal.

And so it is again on the present ride in Washington. Lot’s of PR work. Lots of Messianic posters depicting Obama as some kind of new guru. Lots of gravitas in the speeches. Lots of euphoria in the balls (which cost a few hundred million dollars to stage!). Another fairground ride for us to be on. This isn’t about cynicism; it’s about realism. It’s time for us to get real and stop behaving like little children whose world is governed by fairy-tale fantasies about Santa Klaus and handsome princes and I’m going to be an engine-driver, an astronaut or Luke Skywalker when I grow up. We have allowed ourselves to become infantilised and dumbed-down to such an extent (could it be all those unreality shows on TV! :o) that we cannot even see what is plainly going on all around us anymore — never mind what’s behind the scenes. We have become fodder for the fraudulent forays of devious politicians who could never make their moves without our sponsorship, which they engineer. Engineered consent. That’s the name of the game. That’s what democracy is all about.

However, just as you wouldn’t give your heart away in a love relationship to a total stranger who used cheap pick-up techniques on the sidewalk, please don’t allow yourself to be so easily taken in by any politician, no matter how great they may seem; but especially by those who use hypnotic techniques with empty platitudes to woo you.

These are times of massive deception. As a friend wrote to me today: “Evil has never looked so good”. Either we get it or we don’t.